adminAs husband and wife advertised the family house in suburban Marlborough for sale, the man told this writer that, after agonising over which option to take, the future of their son had finally prevailed.
“We have decided to go to a country where our son can receive training even for using a spanner so he can become self dependent in his adult life,” he said with regret that they had to get away from a country they loved so much.
Like many other whites leaving a new born nation, the Marlborough family went to South Africa. But apparently unable to stand the apartheid heat in that country, the migrant family was soon on the move again to settle in Canada, this scribe was to learn eventually.
Today, three decades later, the Zimbabwean government has taken huge strides in putting “spanners” in the hands of many disabled children and also in addressing special needs for other young Zimbabweans. Still, the challenge to cater adequately for all the children with special needs in the country remains a gargantuan one.
Senator David Coltart, Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture confirmed the difficult task the Government faced in this regard when saying a few days ago that, like other ministries, various departments under his portfolio experience a shortage of funds and that the department responsible for the special needs of children was no exception.
As a result of the financial constraints, special needs for children were in dire straits across the country with equipment breaking down or not available where it was badly needed.
Senator Coltart said that although his ministry now had in stock many books in Braille and had in 2012 introduced a policy on exclusivity — under which disabled children must learn together with their non-handicapped peers — many of those suffering from hearing or visual impairment failed to access schools across the country due to a lack of requisite equipment or well trained staff at the institutions.
Apart from the blind and the deaf and mute, sexually- abused children and orphans who drop out of school for want of fees also have special needs that must be met.
An educational officer in Gwanda says Matabeleland South Province badly needs the services of psycho-social workers to deal with the special needs of disadvantaged children there.
There must be teachers with special training for children with special needs and for other people requiring functional literacy under which reading and writing are related to practical work.
In Harare, Mr Gift Duncan Nhawu, a teacher at Emerald Hill School for the deaf, called for the introduction of a “sign language” containing the proper formulations of the English language for use by the deaf.
He said the sign language currently in use was “not captured”, not written down. As a result, it made it proper communication in English difficult as it lacked the present and past tenses and pronouns, and therefore a proper syntax for effective communication between interlocutors.
“Drink beer friend heavily,” one might say this or something like that, when communicating in sign language where one might say in proper English, for example: “A friend and I drank beer heavily yesterday.”
Because of the grammatical deficiency, it has been said by some people in education circles that students using sign language “will never pass an examination in English in Zimbabwe”.
Minister Coltart mentioned that equipment at an audio-visual testing centre in Mt Pleasant, Harare, often broke down, as was the case, according to other people in education, in schools or centres elsewhere in the country, disrupting their use in the process.
Mr Nhawu said the equipment at Mt Pleasant was used on those with residual hearing to increase sound in an attempt to enhance hearing.
When that happened, however, some of those affected became irritated by the noise and threw away the equipment, damaging it all the while.
The Emerald Hill school teacher said Zimbabwe was lagging behind such countries as Swaziland and South Africa in the use of advanced technology which, he said, could empower those in Zimbabwe with residual hearing and the stone deaf to live near-normal lives. He noted that the deaf, who sold airtime on the streets of Harare, or in other cities for example, were people with an ability to engage in more enterprising occupations if supplied with computers, with which to communicate.
Implicit in the remarks of the educational officer in Gwanda and in Mr Nhawu’s were impassioned pleas to well- wishers to come to the aid of Zimbabweans with special needs in order to give them a brave new feature.
Financial aid as well as donations of the necessary equipment for use will certainly come handy in mitigating the special needs of Zimbabweans in difficult circumstances.
There are those countries in the West which have repeatedly declared that, in spite of their political quarrels with the Zimbabwean Government which they want to remove from power — perhaps to live intact their silent government within our government — would continue to give assistance to ordinary Zimbabweans.
In light of the pressing, special needs for the socially disadvantaged and disabled Zimbabweans, now is the time for the rich foreign countries to put their money where their mouth is.
But Zimbabweans are not prepared to settle for visibility aid, but, rather, badly need both moral and financial support with a potential to transform the lives of the “down trodden” citizens of this country. “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” it is said with a validity that also applies to the truism: “disability is not inability.”
Online Reporter